The leak and availability of this information, prior to it being made public, gave those with this information an opportunity for personal financial gain, Cullen said in his letter.

This could obviously lead to insider trading and market distortions.

However, Oliver played down the sensitivity of the measures in the ways and means motion, saying most are aimed at implementing tax changes announced in last February s federal budget.

There were no details of the fall economic update contained in the release, he stressed.

These matters were technical changes with the vast majority having already been consulted on.

The motion does contain almost a dozen income and sales tax measures that were not included in the budget, including doubling the children s fitness tax credit to ,000 — as announced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Thursday.